7 Common Dunnart at Hackett, ACT
Identification history
| Sminthopsis murina | 8 Apr 2026 | jridley | ||
| Sminthopsis murina | 4 Apr 2026 | DonFletcher | ||
| Sminthopsis murina | 4 Apr 2026 | dhkmapr | ||
| Sminthopsis leucopus | 4 Apr 2026 | dhkmapr | ||
| Unverified | 3 Apr 2026 | KMeng |
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Significant sighting
MichaelMulvaney noted:
4 Apr 2026
Rare inner Canberra record of this species - there are no records of this species for either Mt Majura or Mt Ainslie within the records of the Atlas of Living Australia
User's notes
Greyish fur
Body between 5-10 cm long
9 comments
DonFletcher
wrote:
7 Apr 2026
@KMeng, as you can see this is a significant record. Please could you confirm the location shown is correct, in the centre of the sealed road Kellaway St, or correct the location. The photo makes it seem more likely you caught it in a house.
KMeng
wrote:
7 Apr 2026
@DonFletcher, thanks for letting me know. I've updated the location to be within 50m of where we caught the dunnart. We brought it inside the house, thinking it was a mouse, but on closer inspection, we noticed its eyes and snout were less characteristic of a house mouse.
DonFletcher
wrote:
8 Apr 2026
@KMeng, Thank you for correcting the location - which makes the record even more extraordinary. I wonder if it was carried there from the reserve by a predator, eg Raven, Cat etc. So I echo Helen Cross - what was it doing when you saw it? (By way of explanation there have been no native small mammals detected in Ainslie Majura for many years until this species was found there recently by Jenna Ridley of the Office of Nature Conservation in ACT Government). So in all, your record is part of a remarkable story which probably has not yet ended.
KMeng
wrote:
8 Apr 2026
No worries. It was running around our garden when we first saw it, before we cornered it into our house. That's great to know; hopefully, that's a promising sign for a population of common dunnarts in the reserve.
HelenCross
wrote:
8 Apr 2026
You did so well to catch it. Yes, hopefully there's many more in the area!
LauraEllis
wrote:
Yesterday
Wow! What an amazing find! Thank you for sharing @KMeng. Was your garden wet at all, their back looks a bit wet?
Location information
- Coordinates 149.163679-35.254570
- Places Hackett, ACT
Sighting information
- 1 Abundance
- 3 Apr 2026 08:40 PM Recorded on
- KMeng Recorded by
-
Collections
KMeng NatureMapr Canberra & Southern Tablelands Latest Other Small Marsupials Small Marsupials Mammals Sminthopsis murina Significant
Species information
- Sminthopsis murina Scientific name
- Common Dunnart Common name
- Not Sensitive
- Local native
- Non-invasive or negligible
- Up to 827m Recorded at altitude
- External link More information
Record quality
- Images or audio
- More than one media file
- Verified by an expert moderator
- Nearby sighting(s) of same species
- GPS evidence of location
- Description
- Additional attributes